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Saturday, 24 May 2014

Hey wonderful readers! It's been another couple of months since my last post but it's been another busy time for me - I moved house again, and have been trying to spend my evenings getting to know my new housemates. I have a Saturday to myself today, and it's such a luxury!

A couple of weeks ago, I read a book called Bound, by Kira Saito. It was one of Amazon's free Kindle books (and still is on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com, I believe). It starts off alright. Be warned, mild spoilers. I'm always intrigued to read about magic/anything vaguely supernatural, and the book strongly features voodoo, with some interesting facts I'd never known. Call me silly if you like, but I'd always thought that hoodoo was a type of fake magic. Not so, and I love finding things like that out!

"Hoodoo is pure magic, without the help of the spirits while voodoo is magic with the aid of the spirits."

Anyway, the topic and a fairly good build up meant that the book had some promise. However, it had some serious flaws. For a start, the best friend was awful. It was like she was just there to provide a bitchy, unlikeable obstacle to the romance that was obviously going to happen between Aurelia and Lucus. While nothing technically happens, the 'romance' is still fairly cliched - other woman throws herself at him but he's obviously attracted to the protagonist, who puts herself down and really isn't interested, honest. I've never been a fan of that.

Here's the main thing, though. I had forgotten about most of my gripes and had just got into the book, when, mid-plot, it finished. No exaggeration - the plot starts to thicken, you can tell some good s*** is about to go down, and then I read the last lines...

"I cleared my throat and remained cool as I spoke. 'You need to put on a shirt because we have to talk.'

Erm, what? Come on! I know it was a free book but that is so blatantly an attempt to make me buy the second book that I just won't now, out of principle. Let me just say that I can understand that it was free and that writers, particularly indie writers, need to make money. There are surely some much better ways about it, though. I probably would have paid for the full version of that book (not cut off mid-way), and much preferred it to reading half a book for free. Admittedly, I don't think I'd pay more than about £1, but surely if the book was good, the writer would be able to raise the price of the following books a little? I've frequently spent a fair bit of money to read more books in a series I love - Veronica Roth's Allegiant was around £8, for example.

It also makes me wonder. If I bought Punished, the second book in the series, currently at £1.79 at Amazon.co.uk, would the same thing happen? Would it be the second half of the book I was hoping to read, or would the old plot be resolved, a new one start, and the whole thing happen again?

What do you think? Is it just me that hates an early finish? Would you be more likely to read the book if it was free, and what would your thoughts be on it finishing before the end?